Ponting lauds new generation

Twenty-nine days of Test cricket across three months and more than
10,000 kilometres has not been enough to split the world's two best
teams. After the battles at home and away the final outcome was
Australia 3, South Africa 3. The net result is that Australia are
still the No. 1-ranked team in the world and South Africa remain
second. The numbers might be soon forgotten but the quality of cricket
that has been on display will be remembered for years to come.

The final Test of a long, fiercely-contested and highly-entertaining
summer ended with ten minutes to spare on the fourth day. It was the
first of the six Tests between these two sides this season that failed
to reach the fifth day. Every match produced a result and threw up
individual performances that showed the five-day format at its very
best.

At the WACA in December it was Mitchell Johnson's scarcely believable
eight-wicket haul followed by an even more surprising effort from AB
de Villiers and the South Africans, who completed the second-highest
chase in Test history. In Melbourne it was the arrival of JP Duminy,
whose 166 stamped him as a world-class player. At the SCG it was the
spine-tingling sight of Graeme Smith walking down the steps with an
hour to play, ready to bat with a broken hand to try and save the
match.

In Johannesburg it was Marcus North's century on debut, combined with
Johnson's breathtaking unbeaten 96. At Kingsmead it was the
20-year-old Phillip Hughes, who refused to back down against one of
the meanest pace attacks in the world, and became the youngest man in
history to score two centuries in a Test. And in Cape Town it was the
return of the forgotten man Ashwell Prince to score 150 as an opener,
followed by a Johnson hundred that was a footnote to the match but
possibly the start of a new chapter for Australia.

There wasn't a boring match among them. The evenness of the overall
contest bodes well for future bouts between these two teams - the
series will become more frequent and will no longer be held
back-to-back - which are, along with India, unquestionably the current
superpowers in Test cricket.

"Right at the moment that's the way it is," Ricky Ponting said. "I'm not
sure if that will always remain the same because there are a number of
other very good Test sides out there as well. Whenever you mention
rankings and things you've always got to throw India into that as well
because they are a very formidable team, mainly at home but they are
starting to put some better performances on the board away from home
as well.

"But as far as we're concerned, we'd like to think that with what
we've done in the last few months, bringing on a new generation of
Australian players, that we can maintain a really high level of Test
match cricket. If we do that and play somewhere the way we've played
in the first couple of weeks of this Test match tour and then I think
we'll take some knocking out of that No. 1 ranking."

It was a strange scenario at the end of the Newlands match. Australia
had lost and it was a hefty defeat by an innings and 20 runs. Yet
there were smiles in the dressing room as the match slipped away, in
part because there was the entertainment of Johnson's hundred but also
because the result of the dead rubber could be quickly erased from the
Australians' memory.

As Ponting's men had their photos taken with the series trophy and
lapped up the atmosphere in the twilight with Table Mountain in the
background, the South Africans also celebrated. It was the second time
they had beaten Australia by an innings - the first came in Durban in
1969-70 - and they had rediscovered the form that deserted them after
their 2-1 win in Australia.

The re-emergence of Prince and centuries to AB de Villiers and the
stand-in captain Jacques Kallis gave the Newlands crowd plenty to
cheer, as did the nine-wicket match haul from Paul Harris. Kallis said
his men would celebrate the strong performance but would also reflect
on a series that was over too quickly.

"[We're] obviously elated with the win," Kallis said. "The guys really
pitched up here on day one and we played the type of cricket that we
know we can play. But it is frustrating that we didn't turn up like
that on the first day of the series. Having said that Australia played
some really good cricket and put us under pressure."

The difference in the first two Tests was the incisiveness of the
attacks on helpful pitches and South Africa's experienced unit led by
Dale Steyn and Makhaya Ntini was outbowled by Australia's young group.
It wasn't until the flat surface in Cape Town that Steyn found the
sort of spark he had boasted in Australia..

"Sometimes you get on a wicket that helps you as a bowling attack and
you try and bowl teams out and you forget what really works, and
that's hitting good areas," he said. "We did that exceptionally well
in this Test match and that's what was lacking in the first two Test
matches. I think the guys have learnt a lot. On a green wicket you've
got to bowl exactly the same way as if you're bowling on a flat wicket
and that's what gets you the wickets, not searching for those miracle
balls that pitch leg and hit the top of off."

The miracle balls might not have come for South Africa in this series
but across the six Tests there have been more than enough miraculous
feats from both teams. Fans will look back on the past three months as
a golden summer for Test cricket.